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Ann Althouse: Taking a ridiculous racial issue and making it more ridiculous.
Althouse ^ | December 13, 2013 | Ann Althouse

Posted on 12/15/2013 3:05:40 PM PST by EveningStar

For some reason — ratings? — Megyn Kelly was on Fox News arguing with some lady who thought Santa Claus should no longer be depicted as a white man ...

So here comes Jonathan Merritt in The Atlantic, turning that nugget o' Fox into something that Atlantic readers might find tasty ...

Kelly didn't demand "rigidly racial depictions." She was challenging her guest's attempt to turn the usual image of Santa into a racial problem. It's the guest who's yearning to impose the racial template. What's the "serious error" about Santa that Kelly is supposed to have made? None! But she made a "more serious error about Jesus," and I guess any error is a more serious error than no error.

What's the error? Merritt informs us that Jesus, being a first-century Jew, probably had dark skin. Jews are not white? One ceases to be white if one's skin is sufficiently dark? It may be silly to use the term "white" to label people by race, but white is a big category, and it includes a pretty broad spectrum of skin colors ...

(Excerpt) Read more at althouse.blogspot.com ...


TOPICS: Politics; Religion; Society
KEYWORDS: althouse; annalthouse; foxnews; jesus; jonathanmerritt; megynkelly
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1 posted on 12/15/2013 3:05:40 PM PST by EveningStar
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To: EveningStar

Our priest makes the same argument about Jesus, but I’ve known many Middle Easterners who were blond and blue-eyed. I have a Lebanese friend who is a red head. Wouldn’t you call Lisa Halaby (Queen Noor) a blonde? I had a Turkish friend who was blonde. So who’s right?

Besides, what difference does it make? I thought that Megyn Kelly’s diatribe on this was stupid.


2 posted on 12/15/2013 3:12:22 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
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To: EveningStar

I say let Santa become a Brotha and then blame him for all of the break-ins that occur across the country since he has been setting the example for how long now?

Next thing you know Santa will start playing “Knockout King.”

Ho ho ho, bwap!


3 posted on 12/15/2013 3:13:59 PM PST by Jack Hydrazine (Pubbies = national collectivists; Dems = international collectivists; me = independent conservative)
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To: EveningStar

They have their own faux holiday, Kwanzaa. Why don’t they create their own faux Kwanzaa Santa. Then, they could make him or her whatever color they wanted.


4 posted on 12/15/2013 3:15:57 PM PST by TomGuy (.)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

The light skin in the Middle East is largely from foreign occupation, be it from the Greeks, Romans, Persians and other Eurasian / Caucasian peoples.

With Israel, most of the light-skinned Jews are of descent from immigrants from Europe with mixed blood happening over the centuries.


5 posted on 12/15/2013 3:19:31 PM PST by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
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To: TomGuy

Who is “they”, do you actually know a single black family that celebrates that stupid fake holiday?
I certainly do not, they think its stupid.


6 posted on 12/15/2013 3:24:51 PM PST by svcw (Not 'hope and change' but 'dopes in chains')
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To: EveningStar

I really don’t know what annoys me most about the militant left: that they’re successfully ruining my fine country or that they’re so damn, unrelentingly humorless.


7 posted on 12/15/2013 3:26:18 PM PST by fullchroma
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To: EveningStar

What’s funny, however is that Buddha is almost always depicted with Asian features when in fact he was Caucasian / Indo-Aryan but no one complains.

Megyn Kelly could sort the confusion out by expressing what she means when she says, ‘white’.


8 posted on 12/15/2013 3:30:33 PM PST by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
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To: EveningStar

Saint Nicholas was White.


9 posted on 12/15/2013 3:33:48 PM PST by Venturer (Half Staff the Flag of the US for Terrorists.)
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To: James C. Bennett

Are you saying that there was no foreign occupation in the Middle East during the days of Jesus? What about all the Bible stories of invasions, etc. in the Old Testament?

I doubt that you meant to say that, if you thought about it logically. It always amazes me (when you stop to study ancient history) at how far the ancient peoples traveled. DNA recovered from ancient bones is revealing the answers to old mysteries every day.


10 posted on 12/15/2013 3:36:35 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
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To: afraidfortherepublic

The Roman soldiers couldn’t tell Jesus apart from his disciples, until pointed out by a disciple. That’s one clue he didn’t stand apart appearance-wise from his followers.


11 posted on 12/15/2013 3:45:17 PM PST by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
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To: EveningStar

This is a perfect example of manufactured outrage.


12 posted on 12/15/2013 4:08:23 PM PST by babble-on
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To: TomGuy

Kwanzaa Claus


13 posted on 12/15/2013 4:16:23 PM PST by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Implementing class warfare by having no class.)
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To: James C. Bennett

Saint Nicholas, the real person, was Greek. Depicting him as a Black African is the height of racial PC nonsense.


14 posted on 12/15/2013 4:19:59 PM PST by Chuckster (The longer I live the less I care about what you think.)
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To: Chuckster

I agree.

A Greek wouldn’t appear very Scandinavian, either.


15 posted on 12/15/2013 4:24:07 PM PST by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

Regardless of how “white” Jesus was, Santa Claus is not a representation of Jesus but rather a derivative of Saint Nicholas, a white European saint (regardless of whether you regard him as really having existed or as merely legendary). Robin Hood was white, King Arthur was white, and so was Santa Claus. If you look at African legends, I assume their heroes would have been black.


16 posted on 12/15/2013 4:53:15 PM PST by Steve_Seattle
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To: TomGuy
"They have their own faux holiday, Kwanzaa. Why don’t they create their own faux Kwanzaa Santa. Then, they could make him or her whatever color they wanted."

And gay, of course.
17 posted on 12/15/2013 4:54:01 PM PST by Steve_Seattle
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To: afraidfortherepublic

Jesus (and Mary and Joseph) were almost certainly darker than traditionally depicted in European art and modern nativity scenes, but they would still be white in terms of modern racial classifications.


18 posted on 12/15/2013 4:58:05 PM PST by Steve_Seattle
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To: EveningStar
Black Santa:

"I done got toys fo' my peeps! Here I come ya'll best be not having dat fireplace lit or my ass be smoking!"

19 posted on 12/15/2013 5:16:55 PM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist (Governor Sarah Heath Palin for President of the United States in 2016)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...
Megyn Kelly was on Fox News arguing with some lady who thought Santa Claus should no longer be depicted as a white man ... Kelly didn't demand "rigidly racial depictions." She was challenging her guest's attempt to turn the usual image of Santa into a racial problem.
Thanks EveningStar.
20 posted on 12/15/2013 5:19:20 PM PST by SunkenCiv (http://www.freerepublic.com/~mestamachine/)
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